Silence Is Still (Often) Golden

In this day of blather, where everyone seems to be constantly compelled to use the media as the outlet for the most trivial news – prnewswire logs another press release roughly every two minutes! – we’re still believers in the power of silence.

That may sound totally counterintuitive…what PR professional in their right mind would tell a client to keep his/her mouth shut? Don’t get us wrong. We totally, absolutely, utterly believe that if you have something new to say that is interesting, provocative and new, you’ve got something truly newsworthy. But, if you haven’t got something relevant to say, don’t say it.
If you add to the piles of minutia and trivia being disseminated, through traditional media and via twitter and the blogoshere, no one will hear you. At best, you may elicit a raised eyebrow or a yawn.

This is why we’ve turned away work to create campaigns that really don’t say anything. Or to work on surveys about topics that no one really cares about. Or to promote products that, frankly, are not new, are not innovative and would challenge even the best spinmeister to make them seem fresh, interesting and/or germane.

“Use silence the way Old Master painters used white. The surface of a pearl, the shaft of light from a window, the glint on a chalice or a dagger” From the novel The Whole World Over by Julia Glass.